Trivial Posts #5: Making Rent, Listening To The Fall, And Lego Diamonds
Welcome to 2015, and welcome to the first ‘Trivial Posts’ of the New Year, as I bring together and week’s worth of interesting posts, ideas, video clips, essays, images, and anything else that catches my eye on the Internet.
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Living With AirBNB
How many people have looked at AirBNB, looked at a spare room, and thought that it can’t be that easy? Probably a lot more people than will read Rachel Signer’s thoughts on doing just that in a New York brownstone with two other flatmates looking to reduce the rent they have to pay. As always, reality is a lot harder than the romance, even in the new sharing economy.
Do you ever have a night where you don’t dream about The Fall?
There are thirty albums by ‘The Fall’, and over thirty days Marc Burrows listened to them all. Exclusivly. One a day, with no respite from other artists. This is the story of a man falling n love with The Fall. Join him
There’s Only One Word For That
It might not bring in the viewing figures it used (but then, what does), but Darts is still big business as the PDC and BDO fight it out this week. Which gives UK readers (and smarter people outside the geo-lock) plenty time to watch this great documentary on the BBC about the magic arrows casting their spell over the country.
Bullseyes And Beer: When Darts Hit Britain
Cliched Headline Is Cliched
You either know that Cinema Sins is the biggest time-sink online, or you’re about to spend three hours on YouTube if you follow this link. Nevertheless, enjoy this breakdown of Marvel’s ‘The Avengers in Space‘ and click on just one more film to see if that one is just as funny (it will be).
Everything Wrong With Guardians Of The Galaxy
Past the 90 mph Wind Barrier
Oliver Franklin documents the ongoing British engineering challenge to build a car that will do 1000 mph. Tracing the project back through Richard Noble’s previous attempts (and previous ‘Thurst’ cars) and the perilous margins of physics and finances they continue to drive through.
Who Has A Gold 4×2 Flat?
When the bricks are untraceable, when the sets become rarities after a few months, and when there is a huge demand online, organised crime will find a way to fill in the gaps in the supply chain and extract profit. I just didn’t expect to find out the latest criminal craze would be Lego.
For Thieves, Lego Is The New Uncut Diamond
This Week’s Long Read: Bad Blood
Will Storr and the team at Matter take spin a thrilling tale of money, power, loyalty, and betrayal in the former Soviet Union. But the tale of Alexander Litvinenko is not a Clancy-esque Cold War thriller, it’s a true story. Going beyond the headlines, this is engrossing and chilling in equal measure.
How Radioactive Poison Became The Assassin’s Weapon Of Choice
What have I been up to?
Two more articles with my by line from around the Internet. The first is a look at how important Google is to the Android ecosystem through an article using proof by negation – in other words can we imagine Android without Google? Secondly is the annual pick of the writing team at ESC Insight (the long-form blog and podcast I co-edit around the Eurovision Song Contest). It’s not just one Saturday in May, as this collection of music from a year of Eurovision heats, tryouts, national finals, and the show itself, will show.
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